Marketing Land » Vic Drabickyhttp://marketingland.com
Marketing LandFri, 31 Jul 2015 20:54:42 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Client, Agency, And Vendor Wishlists For Santahttp://marketingland.com/client-agency-and-vendor-wishlists-for-santa-66625
http://marketingland.com/client-agency-and-vendor-wishlists-for-santa-66625#commentsMon, 09 Dec 2013 14:00:08 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=66625Surprise! Here is another one of those holiday wishlist-type articles that seem to be a dime a dozen this time of year. In these writers’ defense, wishlist articles really are the most fun to write, as they are little more than a nicely packaged way of telling other people they suck at something.

And, is there really anything more fun than sitting on our high horses — granted to us by the writing gods — and picking on other people? Okay, maybe, but the only way to really find out is to give it a try. So here goes nothing!

I Hope Santa Brings Clients…

Better digital marketing understanding at the executive level: Executives on the client side are amazing at a million different things that I could only dream of being good at. But in many cases, executives still lack knowledge of the basics of digital marketing. I realize there are lots of different pieces to a business, but digital revenues are now often responsible for more than 25% of a client’s total business. So, it is time to understand how digital marketing works and the basic ways to evaluate success.

Better understanding of customers: One thing that still constantly surprises me is how disjointed customer data is: store data isn’t integrated with online, data integrity is a big issue, and overall, it takes entirely too long to evaluate the customer tied to each conversion. I realize there are lots of moving pieces, and it isn’t as easy as tossing it all in a pivot table, but understanding your customer is arguably the most important piece of your business. It helps with retention, acquisition, business planning, sales planning — virtually every part of your business. Not to mention it adds nearly endless efficiency into your entire marketing mix and your overall organization. Make the investment. Pretty please?

Understanding that agencies are partners, not servants: Many clients have figured this out and have very healthy, successful relationships with their agencies. Sadly, there is still a large group of clients that treat agencies like the lowest men on the totem pole. They push agencies to do more work on lower fees, they say jump and expect the agency to ask, “How high?” And for the love of God, the “I don’t see my website when I search on this keyword” emails have got to stop. No one wants to work in that sort of relationship. Treat your agencies like a part of your team, get them invested in your success, care about their success, and good things will happen.

The desire to spend endlessly in digital: Okay, maybe this one is selfish, but I had to throw it in. In my defense, could you imagine how successful you would have been if you had over-invested in search in the early years? Why not take a chance now?

I Hope Santa Brings Agencies…

A better understanding of clients’ overall business: Far too often, agencies work within the confines of the work they are doing and don’t consider clients’ overall business trends. The one that always kills me is when an agency says, “We had a GREAT week and blew away the plan!” but the client’s overall business is well below plan. As a client, this just makes me think: (1) you have no idea what is going with my business, (2) your plan must have been way too soft and (3) I don’t ever want to look at your numbers as an indicator of success. Take the time to get out of the agency world and look at a client’s entire business — it will put your work and your results in better context.

A true understanding of what “direct response” means: Yes, direct response most often means ROI, but there are about 50 other meanings, as well. Effective CPC, email sign-ups, store locators, account sign-ins, new visit rates, product page views, video views, heck, even clicks can be a direct response metric. Most agencies get caught pushing toward one of these metrics, which limits their ability to scale and a client’s opportunity to succeed. It is okay to focus on one metric, but including secondary metrics will expand your campaigns and your impact on the client’s business exponentially.

A better temperament when dealing with vendors: Don’t get me wrong, vendors can be annoying (I will get to them in a minute), but that doesn’t give you the right to treat them terribly and use them as your exclusive ticket broker for all hard-to-see concerts. Learn how to quickly identify the good ones, treat them respectfully, and do good work together. Treat your vendors just as you want clients to treat you.

I Hope Santa Brings Vendors…

Better sales decks: Canned sales decks that you review over a WebEx don’t help. I don’t need to see a slide showing the growth of the Internet or how 75% of your users are between the ages of 14 and 92. Instead, try showing 10 slides with specific ideas on how you fit into a client’s business. That approach would actually be interesting and helpful (and likely get you new business).

A better understanding that emailing everyone in the entire company the exact same introductory email isn’t a good thing: Seriously. You actually think this is a good thing? Also trying to jump from person to person until you get the title you want is just disrespectful and is a good way to guarantee I won’t work with you. You want the deal? Make everyone on my team is your advocate.

Better swag: I know this falls into the “you’re an ungrateful jerk” category, but it is a proven fact that the notebook, oversized t-shirt, cheap pens, bouncy balls, or mystery gift with your giant logo on it was never the impetus for someone reaching out to you with new business.

As for me, there are about a thousand things on my list, too, but perhaps the biggest one is the ability to turn my articles in on time. If I don’t get that, then perhaps all of you wishing Santa would bring the gift of a new author that is slightly less jaded might get exactly what you are wishing for.

]]>http://marketingland.com/client-agency-and-vendor-wishlists-for-santa-66625/feed4The Ultimate Holiday Prep List: 28 Things Every Marketer Should Dohttp://marketingland.com/the-holiday-marketing-prep-list-to-end-all-holiday-prep-lists-62876
http://marketingland.com/the-holiday-marketing-prep-list-to-end-all-holiday-prep-lists-62876#commentsMon, 04 Nov 2013 13:45:15 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=62876All right, so maybe that title is a little arrogant. After all, there are a million holiday list articles this time of year, ranging from “Top 10” lists to “Survival Guides” and everything in between. So, why read this one? Well, this one is different (read: hopefully interesting and helpful).

This article doesn’t take the “execute this strategy” approach, and it doesn’t take the “I bet you forgot to do x” approach, either. We all know Holiday is an insane time of year, so the last thing anyone needs is an article reminding you of things you should be doing but aren’t.

Instead, this is your basic preparatory checklist. I firmly believe the only way to combat the hectic-ness is to be prepared (and to force everyone around you to prepare).

So with that — cue the pyrotechnics and overly dramatic heavy metal entry music — I give you The Ultimate Holiday Prep List: 28 Things Every Marketer Should Do For Holiday. Here goes nothing:

1. Plan your revenue by day. Do it now. This will provide you with quick indicators throughout the campaign to let you know if you are going to be short of goal or over goal — both of which help determine your strategy moving forward.

2. Plan your spend by day through the end of the year. Do it now. Same reason as #1.

3. Review your revenue performance to date. Has it been on plan/short of plan/over plan? Whatever the trend, plan on the same trend continuing and build your strategy around it.

4. Review your marketing performance to date. What channels are on plan/short of plan/over plan? Whatever the trend, plan on the same trend continuing and build your budgets around it.

7. Plan all your sales/discounts/promotions/events and put them on the same calendar you put on everyone’s walls.

8. Have a plan in place for when you miss your numbers. Having “backup” sales/discounts/promotions/events and additional marketing options handy will keep you from panicking.

9. Create all your sales/discounts/promotions/events banners now. You can always adjust the percentage or wording later, but creating the container (and other such elements) ahead of time will save you and your creative team a lot of stress.

10. Pre-load all your sales/discounts/promotions/events information into your ad server, search account, etc. You can always adjust the percentage or wording later, but pre-loading will save you time and stress.

11. Establish your reporting parameters/standards up front. Inevitably, something won’t go as planned and we end up wasting days trying to chase down data that is then irrelevant, as too much time has passed to act on it. Establish reporting parameters within the entire organization — then stick to them.

12. Focus your time analyzing reporting, not pulling reporting. If you haven’t automated your reporting, using even basic macros will help speed the process along.

13. Get everyone on the same page — then work to keep them there. Bring all channel managers (PR, email, site ops, display, search, affiliate, etc.) into a room at least three times per week to make sure everyone is talking about performance, upcoming events, etc. This will help shape your approach in the coming days/weeks.

24. Have a good long distance rear view mirror. Know what happened last year — what worked and what didn’t — and plan accordingly this year.

25. Have a bad short distance rear view mirror. Forget about what happened last week — act to make sure this week is successful, on plan, and meeting expectations.

26. Stress rarely leads to profitable action. Stop. Take a breath, do yoga, go for a run, sleep, etc. Then act.

27. Remember to sleep.

28. Remember to eat.

All those things aside, remember that it’s just work. You can choose to run around like a chicken with your head cut off, stressed beyond belief and dreading the idea of going to work for the next two months — or, you can choose to make it fun, push the limits, do cool things, lead your clients/teams, and make an impact on the business. There’s no avoiding holiday, so why not choose to enjoy it?

]]>http://marketingland.com/the-holiday-marketing-prep-list-to-end-all-holiday-prep-lists-62876/feed0The Growing Divide Between Paid Search & Marketinghttp://marketingland.com/the-growing-divide-between-search-marketing-60004
http://marketingland.com/the-growing-divide-between-search-marketing-60004#commentsMon, 07 Oct 2013 13:15:26 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=60004Like most people, I hate being wrong. Let me correct myself: I hate being wrong. There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling when you realize whatever it was you were defending so vehemently is just flat wrong.

At that point, you only have two options: 1) hold onto your point, stick your head in the sand and admit nothing, or 2) swallow your pride, take your medicine and admit you were wrong. I like to think I am not wrong all that often, and despite what my fiancée might say, when I am, I like to think I am one who swallows my pride and admits it.

With that, I am taking a huge gulp of my pride with this month’s column. I was wrong, and I admit it.

Now, there are varying levels of being wrong. There is the “Cowboys are going to win a playoff game this year” kind of wrong (which I appear to be wrong on most of the time); then, there are the big ones that shake you to your core. In this case, I’m guilty of the latter.

A few months back, I wrote an article for Marketing Land called “Is The Art Of Paid Search Marketing Dead?” in which I foolishly suggested there was still a small bit of art left in search marketing. Art? Are you kidding me? Ugh. I haven’t been so wrong or felt so foolish in a long time. The truth is, there is no art in search and I believe we are moving to a time where there is very little marketing in search as well.

Paid Search’s Early Days

While I have always been one that longs for days gone by, I tend to do it with paid search more than other things (which makes me the nerdiest person alive). In the beginning, search was marketing. With almost no tools or automation, it was your job as the marketer to find the right keywords and phrases to match your customer with your campaign.

As the marketer, it was your job to develop and test creative that perfectly reflected your brand and distinguished it from everyone else’s ad. It was your job to comb through data to find the right position at the right time and place your perfect keyword and perfect description in front of a customer at the perfect time. You were, in fact, a marketer. You were creative and targeted, and you needed the same skills as a traditional ad person, but you had the added bonus of analytics to support your work. Needless to say, those days are long gone.

Paid Search Today

Today, the marketing aspects are all but gone from paid search. Don’t believe me? Try it. Here are the results for my recent search for [hotel near TCU campus]:

Paid search results are rarely actual “marketing” anymore.

Keep in mind that I, the searcher, told “advertisers” the state, city, neighborhood and an interest of mine all in the search query. Of the 10 paid search ads I received (not counting the Google hotel search ads), only 3 even mentioned TCU — 2 were keyword insert, and one was an Ask.com listing.

At this point, you are likely so used to seeing a bunch of auto-generated, nearly identical listings that your brain is discounting this as “no big deal,” and you probably think that I should just get over it. While you are right, and I need to get over it, I still think it’s worth comparing these generic listings to the paid search ads of years past. When you look closely at paid search listings these days, you will notice a few things:

There is little to no differentiation

There is little targeting

There are now advertisers that are simply “marketing” their site… which is a site of ads (Ask.com amongst others)

Are any of those good things? When you consider the points above, it is clear the “marketing” aspect of paid search is all but gone. We have automated, generic, blanket listings that are quite often less creative and targeted than yellow page listings. We have brands whose entire goal has shifted from marketing their brand and product to simply trying to protect it from JoeSchmo.com, who has no product and no brand, but does have a terribly designed site that simply consists of more ads for you to click on.

The idea that this is okay still bugs the hell out of me. And perhaps the worst part about all of this is that the person who suffers the most is the user. They rarely get the specific ads they need, they are left clicking nonstop, and (without knowing it) they are being exposed to fewer and fewer brands as the biggest of the big crowd the space.

Paid Search Tomorrow

With the “marketing” piece missing from search engine marketing, what’s next? Clearly, I don’t work for Google (and, in the spirit of full disclosure, probably am not smart enough to work there), but there seem to be two clear next steps in search engine marketing listings:

Paid search is simply a cost of doing business. It’s like toilet paper or printer cartridges — you just have to have it to run your site. The further away from “marketing” paid search gets and the closer it gets to becoming a simple cost of doing business (e.g., we have to buy our brand terms or other people will benefit from our brand), the more secure the spend gets to be with Google et al. The engines get guaranteed dollars, brands are required to allocate funds each year, you check it off the list and move on.

Automation creates a feed-based world. As if things aren’t automated enough, soon you won’t even have to run your campaigns. Give Google a product feed every day and they churn out the keywords, the creative, the positioning and you’re done. For Google, it’s a win because they control your cost of doing business, and marketers will think it’s a win because everything gets easier with completely automated “marketing.”

Neither of the above two ideas are all that much of a stretch, but both are clear steps away from the idea that paid search is marketing. Whether paid search is marketing or is simply generic listings — and whether this shift is a good thing or a bad thing — I am sure can be nerdily debated until we are blue in the face. But either way, it will certainly change the role of search agencies, the role of brands/advertisers, and the way consumers experience your brand through search for years to come.

]]>http://marketingland.com/the-growing-divide-between-search-marketing-60004/feed225 Ways To Turn Number Vomit Reporting Into Valuable Business Actionhttp://marketingland.com/5-ways-to-turn-number-vomit-reporting-into-valuable-business-action-56989
http://marketingland.com/5-ways-to-turn-number-vomit-reporting-into-valuable-business-action-56989#commentsTue, 27 Aug 2013 13:15:45 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=56989Number vomit. Ugh. It wastes more of my time than anything else during the work week. (With the recent exception of Candy Crush. I mean, are you kidding me with that game?)

It appears in many different forms: weekly search reporting, dashboards created to make C-level folks feel like they know what is going on, even in those five-year business projections the Board of Directors seemingly has you do every month. It comes in Excel sheets, PowerPoints, and even PDFs if you can believe.

Sometimes, it’s called a “search report” and other times, it’s a “business update.” But, no matter what form it comes in or what it is called, know this: it is a waste of your time, it is a waste of time for the people preparing it, and when you are done staring at it, you rarely know more about what’s going on with your business than before you read it.

If your reporting looks anything remotely close to this, you probably won’t like my article.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! Data can and should make our lives easier and our businesses more successful. And by simply refining our point-of-view and presentation of data, we can turn worthless piles of numbers into clear, actionable data for our businesses. While somewhat easier said than done, there are five steps we can use to try to keep our teams and our agencies on point.

1. Reporting Is Not The End Goal — Action Is

The vast majority of what we do is collect numbers and put them in a set format. We have big Excel sheets that have every number in the world on them (more on this in a minute), and we build elaborate systems to automate the collection and formatting of this data so that clients get their results as quickly as possible with as little work as possible from our teams.

The second the report is out the door, we check the box that the work is done. The problem is that reporting on its own is not nearly as valuable as the interpretation of the data in the report. The report shows me that CPC went up — the analysis tells me why, what it means for my business, and what I should expect in the coming week.

Without that critical analysis, we (business owners and agencies alike) are left with a vomit pile of numbers that we each will interpret and act on in our own ways — leading to wasted time and money and poor business planning. So, deliver your reporting, but know that the task isn’t done until you have analyzed the numbers and provided real plans of action and business guidance.

2. More Doesn’t Mean Better — Part I: Data

This is one of the biggest and hardest issues to deal with. It usually starts off harmlessly enough (“Can we report on CPC?”), but then it quickly spirals out of control. “Can we see CPC by keyword type… then by match type… then by keyword… then by day….” Next thing you know, you have an Excel sheet with 42 tabs and 300 data points, none of which tell you what is actually going on.

Instead, focus on four things: Goals, Actions, Metrics, and Outcomes (I would say use the GAMO acronym, but not sure it has a memorable ring to it).

Goals are your primary objective for the week (e.g., I want to drive my CPC down).

Actions are the steps you took to achieve your goal (e.g., I eliminated broad match).

Metrics are the few key data points that define your goal (e.g., CPC for the areas you adjusted this week).

Outcomes tie your goals, actions, and metrics together to determine what happened and define the best next steps for your business.

While this approach seems oversimplified, it works no matter what level of business complexity you are looking at — from high-level CEO dashboards to tactical search or display tests.

3. The Rule Of Three

Earlier, I mentioned “action” being the end result — which is something that many people tend to struggle with, oddly enough. They have their 27MB Excel sheet of data, but can’t make any sense of it.

In those cases, follow the rule of three: what happened, why, and what should we expect next. Anytime you are analyzing data, if you can answer these three questions, then you will be turning number vomit into action that will guide the business forward.

4. More Doesn’t Mean Better — Part II: Analysis

There is an old saying that goes something like this: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Unfortunately, digital marketers tend to have a hard time understanding this one. Far too often, the data almost gets us to a definitive answer, but we choose not to act on it since the data doesn’t line up perfectly.

Surprise! Things rarely work out that simply or clearly. But instead of realizing it, making a decision, and moving on, we send our teams back to their nerderies to crunch more numbers, pull more data and analyze further.

When this happens, more often than not, we end up two weeks down the road with no more clarity, but a ton more wasted time and energy. I am not saying to make premature decisions based on bad data, but I am saying to know when to make a decision and when you are suffering from analysis paralysis.

5. Reporting Templates Are Your Frenemy

Every agency or technology out there boasts a quick, amazing, life-changing reporting system where you can see whatever you want whenever you want it. The problem is that these templates try to be everything to everyone but end up meaning nothing to anyone.

Look, there has to be some sort of template and some sort of automation for efficiency and consistency’s sake, but each business/client is different and without some extent of customization, you are most definitely missing out on aspects crucial to your business.

Don’t believe me? Tell me the report for my custom cupcakes brand and my baby clothing/toy/registry client should be the exact same… especially given they have completely different business goals.

Final Thoughts

Let’s be clear: I am not a quant guy and I am not a tech-y report systems builder. But I have been lucky enough to be on both sides of this issue. I was at an agency that worked mercilessly to build automated reports that had a ton of metrics in them. And I have been on the client side where I got terribly automated reports with adjoining PPTs that contained screenshots of the terribly automated report that told me nothing about my business.

Neither of these situations were ideal, but as each progressed to include more of the above five aspects, we were able to take our respective puddles of worthless data vomit and turn them into something much more impactful to our businesses.

]]>http://marketingland.com/5-ways-to-turn-number-vomit-reporting-into-valuable-business-action-56989/feed2Paid Search Can’t Scale Without Helphttp://marketingland.com/paid-search-cant-scale-without-help-52636
http://marketingland.com/paid-search-cant-scale-without-help-52636#commentsTue, 30 Jul 2013 12:55:05 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=52636Whether you’re a brand or an agency, arguably the best place to be is to not know where to spend your next marketing dollar. It’s the point of scale, and all brands hit it — from the small start-ups to the massive retailers of the world.

It’s amazingly great because it means you have covered your current customer demand to the best of your ability (e.g., your brand is covered in search, SEO is a well-oiled machine, remarketing, email, etc., are all in good spots), and you need to find new avenues for acquiring new customers and growing your business.

Unfortunately, hitting this point can also make your heart beat a little faster and your palms sweat just a bit as you know the frightening conversation that comes next (and, this conversation happens with small clients and big clients alike).

The conversation where you walk into your CMO’s office (yes, the same CMO that doesn’t understand digital to the point they should and could care less to learn about it), and you begin to explain to them that the next dollar they spend on digital marketing is going to lose them money.

I’ve tried explaining why a bunch of different ways – from comparing it to print advertising, to talking through attribution modeling, to simply saying we are moving to more prospecting rather than only retention – and in the end, every CEO/CMO/client has the same bewildered look on their face as they try to understand why the channel that routinely gives them a 10:1 ROI is now going to be giving them a .25:1 ROI.

Despite the difficulty in getting the higher-ups to buy into the concept, it is actually a great spot to be in. It means you have a chance to grow your/your client’s customer base. If you are a search agency, this is arguably the best, most important place to be in as you have an opportunity to move past working at the bottom of the funnel (brand search, retargeting, etc.) and begin to move further up toward more advertising that will drive the business forward.

The challenge is that search is not a channel that scales very well, so without help from other channels, your expansion efforts will be short-lived and you will find yourself back at the bottom of the funnel. While there is no one way to do it, here are a few things to keep in mind as you push through this inflection point.

1. Search Doesn’t Scale Well

If you are a search agency, Google, or any of the search technology providers out there, you are scoffing at this notion and/or writing me off as an idiot. True, there is some scale in search, and you can find different pockets that work well for you; but, if a CMO asked you what you would do with $1M to grow the digital brand quickly, efficiently and creatively, and you answered “paid search,” you won’t be able to make much of a case.

Don’t get me wrong, search should be part of the mix, but with so many opportunities to show the brand in a much more creative light — ranging from basic video advertising to online/offline partnerships and everything in between — it is very hard to position paid search as the lead role, and those that do will quickly (and rightfully) get shut down by the CMO.

2. Get Creative

I used to hate it when clients or bosses would say something along the lines of, “Here is limited direction and a general budget amount, come up with something impressive.” I believed that what they were really saying was, “Work real hard, come up with some stuff, then I will trash it and go with what I like anyway.” But now that I have been through it a few times (aka am a few years older), I actually appreciate the question a bit more.

In the past, my problem was I always started with what I knew – paid search – so my answer was always “put more money into paid search, then do X, Y, and Z.” It didn’t matter what X, Y, and Z were. It was the idea that I started with paid search as the answer to the question requiring a creative answer that was nullifying my other ideas.

Instead, bring good ideas from any/all channels – offline ideas, partnerships with other brands, pop-up stores, digital branding, etc. – knowing that they will benefit the brand overall. Sure, you might not get to execute the plan for the skywriter over Manhattan given that you are a search agency, but know that whenever your idea does get executed, all the bottom of the funnel pieces will benefit.

3. Prepare Your Analytics

Right now, all of you are thinking, “I have my analytics in place, I have some attribution in place, this is easy — why am I reading this junk?” The reason you are reading this junk is because if all you have done is gotten your analytics prepared, then you are missing the most important part.

When you run campaigns that are designed for scale, how and what you track are different from the metrics you track when you run for retention. So, should you have your Google Analytics and all that set up correctly? Of course. But, you should also plan to look at things like click path reporting/attribution, changes in search volume (impressions and clicks), new customer acquisition, new visit counts, new sources of traffic, etc. And, perhaps the biggest thing to account for is that not everything you do when trying to scale will be as linear as your typical direct response channels.

It won’t be simply that they clicked on three ads and then bought. The amount of marketing interactions and the amount of time between them will vary wildly, with some of them even being untrackable (the horror!). So, be prepared to have most of the pieces to the puzzle, but not all of them, and know you will need to build your story with information less-definitive than you are used to having.

Going Past The Point Of Scale

Anytime you run a new type of campaign or push past your own comfort zone, it can be a little scary. It can be even scarier knowing that all eyes are on you to help push your company/client past this point and on to bigger things. But, the sooner you do, the sooner your comfort zone will expand. The sooner your comfort zone expands, the sooner you will be able to scale. The sooner you are able to scale, the sooner you will be better than that silly, old, unscalable product called paid search.

]]>http://marketingland.com/paid-search-cant-scale-without-help-52636/feed2Is The Art Of Paid Search Marketing Dead?http://marketingland.com/is-the-art-of-search-marketing-dead-49920
http://marketingland.com/is-the-art-of-search-marketing-dead-49920#commentsTue, 02 Jul 2013 13:06:57 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=49920If you are a regular reader of this column, then you know I have a tendency to reminisce about the old days of digital marketing and the early days of our old agency. Maybe I am just getting sentimental in my old age, but I found myself reminiscing once again this past week as I looked through an old sales deck.

“Search is part science, part art,” read the title of a slide that tried to explain this new-fangled thing called paid search.

“Part science, part art.” There was no better phrase in the world to explain what we did than those four words. There was so much science behind what we did – we had numbers that showed how all our campaigns performed – but the art of writing the best creative and finding the newest keywords people were using to search was the added touch that made everything work.

“Part science, part art.” It makes me shudder now. Is there a worse way to describe paid search than art? These days, with the massive improvements toward search automation, the most successful search marketers are far more scientist than they are artist. But is that a good thing — or is it holding search back?

Making The Case For Science

We were silly to think there is any art in paid search to begin with. What we were calling “art” was actually just a poor man’s way of explaining topics that were too hard for CMOs to understand. (Bidding? What do you mean you bid on advertisements? On the Internet?)

Search was built by engineers, supported by algorithms, and is nothing more than a few characters of text layered on top of a lightly colored box. Nothing about that screams art. From day one, search was built for the brainiacs and data wizards and needs to be left that way.

Keywords. The engines give those to you. All of them. The new ones, the old ones, the trending ones and everything in between.

Bidding. Technologies track what works and at what costs, making sure every penny we spend is done as efficiently as possible.

Creative. Why spend hours trying to write it when companies like Data Pop make sure each piece is written to perform in the best possible way?

Targeting. Don’t know what countries, states, cities, zip codes or 100-yard-area performs best for you? Google will tell you and then let you target those specific areas. What about different devices? They have you covered there, too.

Campaign Forecasting. Scared of making predictions about volume and sales? There are tools for that.

Reporting. Do I even need to remind you that all the above tools are based on insanely granular reporting?

Campaign Management. Don’t want to use a bunch of tools? No problem — there are plenty of tools like Kenshoo and Marin that aggregate all the tools into one for you.

And this is just the beginning. If there is an ability to perform any action in paid search, there is a tool to automate it and make it as efficient as possible. In the world of cut-throat marketing budgets and tight ROIs, you can take your “art” and go talk to the people that run branding. It might make more sense to them.

Making The Case For Art

Can things be automated? Of course. Can automation help? Absolutely. Is automation the answer to all our problems? Absolutely not.

Keywords. Those tools work great if there is already demand for a product or brand, but I am advertising my new product on the Super Bowl this year. Strange, those tools don’t suggest any related keywords.

Bidding. Works great if demand never changes and outside influences don’t change the value of each click.

Creative. Ever seen an eBay search ad? No? Oh right, they canceled their paid search programs. Perhaps if they had written ads that weren’t so poorly constructed – clearly through automation – their program would have performed better and paid search would be an effective channel for them.

Targeting. Completely eliminates the influence of new stores, events, local happenings, etc.

Campaign Forecasting. All of it is done in a bubble completely removed from current context and is based solely on historical demand.

Reporting. Happens in the bubble of the campaigns and eliminates any influence from other marketing channels.

Campaign Management. Okay fine — I give science this one.

Search may be made for brainiacs, but without some artistic love, all the campaigns will end up being cold, boring search listings that feel more like engineering manuals than advertising.

The Conclusion

While I am all for the science part of search (and, in truth, believe it should be the foundation of every search campaign), I feel that whenever a search campaign is completely devoid of art, it becomes a vapid wasteland that is anything but interesting. We keep trying to make these arguments that search needs more budget and is great for brand building, then we keep running campaigns that rarely exhibit the same feel (or even same language, in some cases) as the brand as a whole.

I am not here to say that technology in search is bad and we all need to start a giant, hippie search commune where we only run “artistic” search campaigns and all wear patchouli. But is it wrong to want people to be a bit more creative and artistic with their search campaigns? Who knows, maybe I am just being sentimental again.

Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries were a disaster from the start – a failed marriage that never had a chance.

He, a naive, budding basketball player who followed his heart more than his mind and fell in love with Kim. She, a for-no-good-reason celeb trying to make a quick buck and keep herself in the spotlight with no emotional investment in Kris.

They went together like oil and water, like fire and ice, like a head of digital marketing and a CFO.

Ok, maybe that is a bit dramatic; but, as we start the long summer months where marketing teams begin asking for incremental testing dollars, new focus gets put on the often-strained relationship between finance and marketing.

Kim & Kris: What Can Marketers Learn From Their Failed Marriage?

Marketing leads with the heart – putting blood, sweat and tears into each new idea that is going to be amazing no matter what anyone tells them. Finance leads with the head – focusing on the money and the benefit to their spreadsheets with virtually no emotional investment whatsoever (ok, I work in marketing, so maybe I made finance seem a little worse than they actually are).

Together, marketing and finance are a failed marriage. However, those organizations that have found ways to successfully integrate finance and marketing are far more nimble, far more successful, and far happier than their dysfunctional counterparts.

There are a lot of reasons why finance and marketing don’t mix well; but as marketers, we can be better partners and do our part to improve the relationship. Five key places to begin include:

1. Communication Is Key. Marketing always goes to finance asking for more. Finance always goes to marketing to take away. But in between, neither explain their reasoning past general comments like, “we need it for testing” or “we have to cut back to make our numbers.” In reality, the more marketing and finance talk, the more each will understand the other – which leads to more collaborative and accurate budget planning, added marketing flexibility and an overall stronger organization.

2. Share Successes. True, marketing spends money; but, that is only half of the story. The other half is typically a wonderful story of successes about brand positioning, customer acquisition, and driving revenues. The problem is finance never hears this side of the story.

They see a number on the spreadsheet that is too big and needs to be reduced. But, what if alongside that number, they saw that it drove 1,000 new customers? Would they be so quick to cut it? By including finance in the results from each dollar spent, they will have a better understanding of where the money is going and the impact it is having on the business – which helps them understand exactly what they are cutting and if it is the right thing to cut.

3. Share In Cutbacks. Nobody likes the person that is only nice to you when they want something (e.g., marketers to finance when they want budget). Instead, as marketers, we can be good partners to finance by being active fiscal conservatives.

Cut back when we have to, but run a tight ship year round as well. By constantly evaluating your expenses and proactively going to finance with ways to improve efficiency, you will build a true, healthy partnership. As an added bonus, you will end up with a stronger media plan/budget that is more accurate and less open to wild swings caused by added or cut budgets.

4. Know Your Numbers. Nothing is more frustrating to finance than when you come to ask for money for a project and you haven’t clearly thought out why you need that amount of money, what you are going to do with it, or what you can expect from spending it. Or how about if you built your media plan and completely misstated your revenues for the year?

This trains finance to think you don’t know the business and that they must do their own calculations instead of accepting yours. This creates a scenario where marketing gets their numbers handed to them from finance rather than marketing guiding finance. Instead, know your numbers, your plan, your risks and your upside before you ask for anything. This makes it much easier for finance to understand the entirety of your request and the potential outcomes – plus finance begins to trust your numbers more and more over time.

5. Hold Yourself Accountable. If the numbers are good, it’s because of marketing. If the numbers are bad, it’s because of “outside forces.” No marketer wants to face the music when things go awry, and things are rarely as clear cut as falling solely on marketing’s shoulders; but, should you miss the numbers or spend too much, hold yourself accountable.

Be proactive and let finance know ahead of time that you might miss your numbers. If you have already missed them, let them know why and how you are fixing things for the future. This won’t make the conversation any easier to have, but it will build for a much better relationship down the road.

Tying The Marriage Knot

In the end, it takes two for a successful marriage, so finance has to meet marketing somewhere in the middle to tie the knot. It won’t happen overnight or even over a season or two. Heck, it might take a year or more. But in the end, a successful relationship between marketing and finance will make an organization stronger, more flexible and more successful. Plus, it is way more fun than dealing with all the drama that comes from people finding out your sham marriage had failed miserably.

]]>http://marketingland.com/5-keys-to-improve-the-marketing-finance-relationship-46690/feed0Accomplishments, Complaints & Predictions: The Ultimate 2012 Year-End Listhttp://marketingland.com/accomplishments-complaints-predictions-the-ultimate-2012-year-end-list-29644
http://marketingland.com/accomplishments-complaints-predictions-the-ultimate-2012-year-end-list-29644#commentsMon, 31 Dec 2012 17:35:37 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=29644Well, it’s that time of year again: time to squeeze in every little bit of revenue before the 2012 books close; time to take every last day of vacation before they magically
disappear at the stroke of midnight on December 31st; and, perhaps most importantly, it’s that time of year when a whole host of year-end roundup articles ranging from the “Top 10 Things We Learned” to articles detailing every well-intentioned, but rarely kept, resolution ever made.

I never thought I would write a “Things We Learned” type article because of a dreadful fear that I only recently learned something the rest of the world has known for years.

Similarly, I never thought I would write a “resolutions” or “predictions” article because I am not very good at keeping them or accurately predicting things, thus making the article just a bit more useful than the Jurassic Park VHS box set you got from Santa this year. But, combine all those things into one super list, and we may be on to something. So, with extra year-end bitterness and a dose of optimism for 2013, here goes nothing!

Accomplishments

2012 was a great year for digital and our industry accomplished a ton. Here are four achievements I found particularly great:

1. Digital Keeps Growing. Whether you choose the $37 billion number eMarketer uses as the digital ad spend for 2012 or the 18% growth rate comScore offers, 2012 was a great time to be in digital advertising, plain and simple.

2. A Return To Testing. If nothing else, 2012 seemed to be the year clients got over all the fear caused by the financial collapse (and the imminent doom of the world) and began testing again. Sure, we are still a ways off from our heyday so many years ago, but anytime the overall climate leans toward more liberal testing, better, more innovative opportunities follow – which is great for everyone involved in digital advertising.

3. Nimble Advertising Outlets. Gone are the days of vendors showing you options, then only being able to customize them 1/10thof a percent. Here are the days of sites like Refinery 29 that work with you to build customized content surrounding your advertising or IntoTheGloss.com that will actually go out, find a model, put your product on said model, do a photoshoot, and write honest content (not fake-sounding advertorial) for you. This isn’t new, but the rigid lines the big, old sites were trying to hold seem to be blurring rather quickly.

4. Innovation. This seems like a boring one; but, at this point, we can more or less target any person, place, behavior, browsing history, shoe size, hair color, favorite food, height, weight, or anything else you want. Ok, some of those may be a stretch, but you get the point. What we can do today compared to what we could do even just two years ago is astounding and something we should all be proud of.

Complaints

As with anything in life, 2012 wasn’t all rainbows and lollipops, either. There are more than a few things to complain about – especially from bitter, old me – but I will limit it to four:

1. Bing Is Still Bing. Remember when we all got so excited about Bing and how we might have a real competitor to Google on our hands? There were all sorts of fancy background images at Bing.com, fancy ad campaigns (remember Scroogled? Don’t worry, most people don’t), and lots of fanfare and excitement.

But here we are, years into this Bing thing, and we are still waiting for a true competitor to Google. Yes, there has been some improvement (and I am super thankful for it), but most of it is simply trying to catch up to what Google already has. I am not asking for a revolution of search marketing; I just want a legitimate contender to keep Google from resting on its laurels. Heck, I would even be happy if the Bing desktop tool worked on Macs at this point.

2. Google’s Algorithm & Shopping Changes. The algorithm change was supposed to clean up natural results – I get that, and I love it. But I now know far less about the people coming to my site through natural than I ever have before, due to the lack of tracking. Maybe that was Google’s goal the whole time, but as a marketer, I hate it.

Couple that with a Google Base/Froogle/Shopping change to a paid model, and it was like a double whammy. Now that I think of it, maybe Bing does have a few things going for it.

3. Paralysis By Analysis. This is sort of inherent to our line of work, but as we get more data, clients require more analysis. The problem is that in most cases, clients want 100% clear info that gives the exact direction they should go in – and in most cases, we can only get to 95%, so we end up losing time and money.

I won’t give the old “you hold no other channel to this type of scrutiny” argument, but… yeah… digital is the only channel scrutinized to this extent and it slows progress.

4. Search Agencies Pretending To Be Digital Agencies. I wrote a long tirade on this last month – which you can read here – so I will spare you the details, but in short: either be a search agency and specialize in it or be a digital agency and be strong in more than just search. End of story.

Predictions

This is the fun part of the article where I get to make predictions for the industry as a whole (sort of) that no one will hold me accountable for because they will all be long forgotten by the time they all end up being wrong.

1. RTB Media Will Take Over. Real Time Bidded media is growing at an extremely quick rate and seems to be a better option than using a network in many cases. I predict in 2013, RTB media will become the biggest chunk of display spending.

2. Direct Response & Brand Will Become One. So, maybe this is more of a dream/hope than a prediction, but if ever there was a year for it, it’s 2013. Combining brand and direct response is a true 1+1=3 scenario – now if only clients and agencies would see that, too.

3. Extinction Of PPT Decks That Are Glorified Reports. Does anyone really need another poorly-colored chart showing the trend of CPCs over the course of 18 months in poorly designed slide format? 2013 is the year Microsoft releases an update to Office, preventing agencies and clients alike from building these slides.

4. English Language Change. The phrases “dovetail, low-hanging fruit, ecosystem (when referencing advertising), shopportunity, haircut (when referencing pricing), and cast a wider net” will be stricken from the English language. If Congress can get just this one thing done, I will forgive all their other missteps.

And, if there is one resolution I could add on top, it would be to be more optimistic.

2012 was a great year for digital from almost all angles, and while dealing with some of the frustrating little nuances that come with working in the industry can make one a bit bitter, we are still in the fastest growing, most innovative, and arguably, most fun sector of advertising that exists. And that is something we should all be celebrating.

]]>http://marketingland.com/accomplishments-complaints-predictions-the-ultimate-2012-year-end-list-29644/feed0Are Search Agencies Becoming Dinosaurs?http://marketingland.com/are-search-agencies-becoming-dinosaurs-26876
http://marketingland.com/are-search-agencies-becoming-dinosaurs-26876#commentsTue, 20 Nov 2012 17:00:19 +0000http://marketingland.com/?p=26876I can’t remember every detail of my first client meeting nearly 15 years ago (I was a newbie working for a search agency), but I can remember a few things:

I remember nearly our entire company going to the meeting (there were only four of us, and three attended the meeting).

I remember the client VP sitting at the table alongside their traditional agency.

I remember how proud I was of the new grey sport coat I was wearing and had bought just for this meeting.

But perhaps the thing I remember most is walking away from that meeting thinking “How could they not get it?” How could the big, traditional agency not see things were changing and search was the wave of the future?

Search would change how we advertise online, change how we measure things, and, most importantly, change the structure of ad agencies everywhere. And if a fresh-out-of-college kid with no business or marketing experience whatsoever could see it, how could a super successful ad agency not see it?

Back then, I came up with a simple answer: traditional ad agencies are dinosaurs. They don’t adapt, they don’t learn, they stick to what they know and, if they had to, they would learn this new “search thing” enough to get by. Idiots.

We – this new breed of digital agency — would never do that.

But here we are almost 15 years later and it seems we are becoming the same dinosaurs we fought so long to defeat.

I recently made the switch from search agency to client-side consultant and went through the process of finding new agencies for multiple clients. We reviewed 14 different agencies ranging from the tiny to the biggest and “best” around. What I saw from most agencies was something I distinctly remember from that first meeting, and it scared me. But it also taught my teams and me quite a bit about what we needed to do to be successful and how we needed to manage our new agency partners.

Digital Agency Vs. Search Agency

With every agency we spoke to, we were clear we were looking for paid and natural search expertise, but we also had both direct response display and branded display needs with our campaigns. This seemed like no problem given that each agency responded and said they were a “full service digital agency” and so much of display is a natural extension of where search began. More than 10 presentations later, I learned most search agencies are still great at search, but have only marginally learned display.

All agencies could do network buys, some were strong in the RTB display space, but only two understood what a strong brand buy was, knew how to measure a branding campaign, or offered any creative suggestions to incorporate digital branding into our campaign.

This reminded me specifically of the traditional agencies that were great at offline, but had only marginally learned online.

What we learned: Search agencies knew search, but severely lacked the ability to effectively execute outside that core and, in most cases, were as much “Digital Agencies” as the old traditional agencies were “Search Agencies.”

Given that specialization, we needed to staff and possibly structure our internal client teams differently. Our focus had to be on hiring people that could take all the different pieces of digital (ranging from search to affiliate to email and everything in between) and combine them into one cohesive strategy.

We needed to take a far more strategic approach to our marketing initiatives knowing our agency likely will take a specialized, single-channel approach.

Data Guided Vs. Data Only Decisions

Back in my first client meeting and still today, one of the greatest aspects of search marketing is the data. We get so much data about what people are searching for, clicking on, not clicking on, buying, geo locations, all sorts of data to make our campaigns better – something the old stodgy agencies had none of.

But it seems for many search agencies, the pendulum has swung too far in the “data must lead every decision” direction. We spoke to agencies that were all too quick to mention their “staff of PhDs that dissect search data,” and others who blatantly said “data determines every action we take.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am a massive believer in data and love Excel far more than the normal person, but I also believe data shouldn’t be the only thing that determines our marketing strategy (I also believe if you are a PhD working for a search agency, perhaps things went wrong somewhere, but I digress).

Data helps us make smarter decisions, helps us narrow down our direction/approach, even helps us hold ourselves accountable for the decisions we do make. But what it also tends to do is neutralize the effects of branding altogether. It takes image, look, feel, heritage, the way the customer feels when they are in your store/on your site – all the softer parts of marketing – and eliminates them.

For some brands, that may work, but for us, it doesn’t.

What we learned: We could rely on our search/digital agency to execute campaigns, evaluate them, and come back to us with solid data about their campaigns. But when it came to inserting branding into our campaigns or creating and launching true brand-building campaigns (the ones search agencies so badly crave because they have “softer” success metrics), the workload would fall on our client team almost completely.

Technology-Led Vs. People-Led

Traditional agencies always had such a great pitch: your entire account services team has worked in advertising for 20 years, they have relationships at all the magazines and TV stations, and if you became their client, all that experience and all those relationships would be yours.

Then came search, where agency relationships helped, but technology would allow us to scale campaigns quickly, more efficiently, and with far less left to chance than with campaigns that hinged on relationships.

This is the one area where there was a clear divide amongst all the agencies we met with. Each agency tended to be either technology-based or people-based, but rarely was it a mix of the two (note: of the 14, two offered a “mix” type of approach. In addition, we required all presentations be given by the account team and not by the sales team, which allowed us to get a better feel for the actual people that would be working on our business).

As search/digital agencies, we can do better. We have all this whiz-bang technology that makes data-driven campaigns perfect, but we also need to layer in great creative people that can help us on the brand side. If you have great creative people, then there are plenty of technologies out there that can help with the executional pieces of search and DR display.

But the idea of being one or the other seems dated and more the approach of a rigid traditional agency than a nimble, new digital agency.

What we learned: Search agencies still seem to be finding their way and, while they do, it will be just as important, if not more important, for us (as clients) to maintain and build relationships with media partners as it will be for our agency to have relationships. By doing this, we are set up to be able to push both our agency and our partners to develop campaigns that work for our business.

I don’t want this column to read like a simple rant on search agencies, but, after spending more than a decade on the search agency side, viewing things from the client side has been rather enlightening.

I still believe just as strongly in search as a channel and believe there is a place for search specialization. But more than ever, I believe search agencies need to either step up and become true digital agencies, or stick with specializing in search — because trying to split the difference and falling short, hurts clients and will eventually hurt agency business.

Plus, it makes us just as much a dinosaur as the traditional ad agency that sat at the table so long ago.

As I write that sentence, a wave of embarrassment washes over me. Failing Math 101 is pretty hard to do (I mean it was an 8 a.m. class my freshman year in college, so perhaps that had something to do with it, but I digress). Yes, it was disappointing to my parents, but was it surprising? No. I have never been good with numbers.

My brain simply does not work that way and never has. I am a right-brained, creative type that prefers coming up with the ideas rather than figuring out the economics behind them.

That is why I was a journalism major and why I got into marketing in the first place: a complete avoidance of numbers. Just come up with creative ways of saying things, throw in some great photography, and voila! Instant career (and campaign) success.

Yet here I sit at 9 p.m. straining my brain trying to figure out the effects on FY13 gross and net revenue, customer counts, and ultimately EBITDA if I double my search spend in South Korea next year.

Welcome to the hell I call Budget Season. While I may never be able to create an long-range plan that accounts for the expected exchange rate of dollars to Yen and the fluctuating cost of cotton, there are four key steps that have helped me build budgets in-line with the business, in line with performance trends of each channel, and that deliver on what they say they will.

Monthly Timeframes Are Terrible For Budgeting

This may sound a bit silly, but months are more or less arbitrary groupings for days, and thus, are absolutely terrible for budgeting. For example, is November 1st just like November 15th? How about November 30th?

While we will never be able to throw budgeting by month out the window, what we can do is make sure our campaigns aren’t run on a monthly schedule. For example, if we have $31 to spend in October and $60 to spend in November, once we hit November 1st, we shouldn’t just double what we are spending per day.

Instead, in late October, slowly begin raising your spend by a few percentage points per day. Then, continue that trend day over day over day throughout the month, or until you hit a day/time that is abnormally different (e.g., Thanksgiving day is abnormally low, and Cyber Monday is abnormally high).

This gives you a more controlled, predictable spend plan that’s in-line with seasonality, and eliminates wild swings that can happen as we hit a month that has a sharp increase in budgeted spend.

Comps Lie, Trends Don’t

Far too often, people budget to achieve a comp and throw trending out the window. But the truth is, comps lie and trends don’t. Year-over-year comps are simply a comparison to the same time period a year before – which is just as much a reflection of what you did last year as it is what you want to do this year.

For example, in order for a comp to be truly helpful, you would need to normalize all special offers, tactics, CPCs, and so on in order to make it a “true” comp (and if you are like me, I have a hard time remembering the special offers I ran last week, let alone a few months ago).

So, instead of budgeting with a comp in mind, budget based on the trend of each of your channels month-to-month for the past 12 to 18 months. This will give you a better indicator of how each channel is performing and how it will perform in the future. Once you have established the trend, you can then see if it meets your goals, and if not, you can then adjust your tactics to try to meet your goal.

Not Everything Is Predictable

The blessing and the curse of digital marketing is that it is so trackable – which leads to the fallacy that everything is predictable. how me someone who thinks they predicted everything and I will show you someone that has a flawed media plan.

No one could have predicted when/how Google Shopping would have switched from a free to a pay method, the effects of the Panda update, changes in the economy, changes in tax laws on Internet purchases… you get the point.

Instead of trying to predict everything and inevitably missing a few things, predict what you can, then build flexibility into your plan so you can actively adjust your plans when things change.

The two easiest ways to build flexibility into a media plan are to reforecast at least each month (using actuals and trends to adjust future months) and have a small percentage of your budget unallocated (I aim for 5% – 10%). By having this slush fund, you always have budget to test new opportunities that pop up and it gives you the ability to immediately add funds to channels that are overproducing – which helps ensure you aren’t leaving money on the table.

Don’t Underestimate Your Gut

Once you have a media plan that takes into account daily seasonality and trends by channel, and once you’ve accepted the fact that you can’t predict everything, don’t be afraid to gut-check your answers. If you are like me, your gut is not only made up of beer, wings, and other assorted junk food, but it is also made up of all your experience, all your mistakes, and all your successes.

So, while your gut feelings should never drive your predictions, they can be a good way to look at things from a high level and make sure everything makes sense.

At the end of the day, there is no way to get around using some sort of math to build your budgets. But, by simply changing your approach from a math-centric, finance-driven model to a model based on experience and trends (with some basic math thrown on top), you can make the process easier to complete and sometimes even a bit more accurate than what the economics-degree-laden, math whizzes in finance can come up with.